Abolitionism

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery, whether formal or informal.

Slavery is a legal or economic system in which principles of property law are applied to humans allowing them to be classified as property, to be owned, bought and sold accordingly, and they cannot withdraw unilaterally from the arrangement.

Abolitionism- From William Llord Garrisson to John Brown by mrholtshistory

In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism is a historical movement to end the African and Indian slave trade and set slaves free.

The history of slavery spans nearly every culture, nationality, and religion and from ancient times to the present day.

The Americas encompass the totality of the continents of North and South America.

Western Europe is the region comprising the western part of Europe.

19th Century Reforms: Crash Course US History #15 by CrashCourse

King Charles I of Spain, usually known as Emperor Charles V, following the example of Louis X of France who abolished slavery within the Kingdom of France in 1315, passed a law which would have abolished colonial slavery in 1542, although this law was not passed in the largest colonial states, and so was not enforced.

Louis X, called the Quarreler, the Headstrong, or the Stubborn, was a monarch of the House of Capet who ruled as King of Navarre and Count of Champagne from 1305 and as King of France from 1314 until his death.

France, officially the French Republic, is a unitary sovereign state and transcontinental country consisting of territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories.

In the late 17th century, the Roman Catholic Church, taking up a plea by Lourenco da Silva de Mendouca, officially condemned the slave trade, which was affirmed vehemently by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839.

Lourenço da Silva de Mendouça, probably born in Brazil, went to Lisbon in 1681, then Madrid in 1682 where he became procurator-general of the Confraternity of Our Lady, Star of the Negroes, a charitable lay society in Brazil and Portuguese Africa.

Pope Gregory XVI, born Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari EC, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 2 February 1831 to his death in 1846.

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide.

An abolitionist movement only started in the late 18th century, however, when English and American Quakers began to question the morality of slavery.

Quakers are members of a historically Christian group of religious movements generally known as the Religious Society of Friends.

James Oglethorpe was among the first to articulate the Enlightenment case against slavery, banning it in the Province of Georgia on humanist grounds, arguing against it in Parliament, and eventually encouraging his friends Granville Sharp and Hannah More to vigorously pursue the cause.

James Edward Oglethorpe was a British soldier, Member of Parliament, and philanthropist, as well as the founder of the colony of Georgia.

Granville Sharp was one of the first English campaigners for the abolition of the slave trade.

Soon after his death in 1785, they joined with William Wilberforce and others in forming the Clapham Sect.

The Clapham Sect or Clapham Saints were a group of Church of England social reformers based in Clapham, London at the beginning of the 19th century.

The Somersett Case in 1772, in which a fugitive slave was freed in England with the judgement that slavery did not exist under English common law and was thus prohibited in England, helped launch the British movement to abolish slavery.

Somerset v Stewart 98 ER 499 is a famous judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, which held that chattel slavery was unsupported by the common law in England and Wales, although the position elsewhere in the British Empire was left ambiguous.

A common law legal system is characterized by case law developed by judges, courts, and similar tribunals, when giving decisions in individual cases that have precedential effect on future cases.

Though anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, the colonies and emerging nations that used slave labour continued to do so: Dutch, French, English, Spanish and Portuguese territories in the West Indies; South America; and the Southern United States.

The West Indies or Caribbean Basin is a region of the North Atlantic Ocean in the Caribbean that includes the island countries and surrounding waters of three major archipelagoes: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago.

The United States of America, commonly referred to as the United States or America, is a federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions.

South America is a continent located in the western hemisphere, mostly in the southern hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the northern hemisphere.

After the American Revolution established the United States, northern states, beginning with Pennsylvania in 1780, passed legislation during the next two decades abolishing slavery, sometimes by gradual emancipation.

The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783 during which colonists in the Thirteen American Colonies rejected the British monarchy and aristocracy, overthrew the authority of Great Britain, and founded the United States of America.

Emancipation is any effort to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchised group, or more generally, in discussion of such matters.

Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.

Massachusetts ratified a constitution that declared all men equal; freedom suits challenging slavery based on this principle brought an end to slavery in the state.

Freedom suits were lawsuits in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States filed by enslaved people against slaveholders to assert claims to freedom, often based on descent from a free maternal ancestor, or time held as a resident in a free state or territory.

Massachusetts mass-ə-CHOO-sits; officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous state in the New England region of the northeastern United States.

Vermont, which existed as an unrecognized state from 1777 to 1791, abolished adult slavery in 1777.

In other states, such as Virginia, similar declarations of rights were interpreted by the courts as not applicable to Africans.

During the following decades, the abolitionist movement grew in northern states, and Congress regulated the expansion of slavery in new states admitted to the union.

France abolished slavery within the French Kingdom in 1315.

While Revolutionary France abolished slavery in France's colonies in 1794, although it was restored by Napoleon in 1802 in Haiti out of necessity as a pro-English ex-slave revolt had broken-out there led by Toussaint Louverture.

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars.

Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a sovereign state located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea.

François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, also known as Toussaint L'Ouverture or Toussaint Bréda, was the best-known leader of the Haitian Revolution.

Haiti achieved independence from France in 1804 and brought an end to slavery in its territory.

The northern states in the U.S. all abolished slavery by 1804.

The United Kingdom and the United States outlawed the international slave trade in 1807, after which Britain led efforts to block slave ships.

Britain abolished slavery throughout the British Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, the French colonies re-abolished it in 1848 and the U.S. abolished slavery in 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states.